“Rosa Bonheur galloped into the world in 1822, the year of her birth in France, and never stopped,” begins this engaging biography of the artists who learned to draw from her father and loved playing knights with her brother, feeling like “a woman-warrior.”
Unlike other women of the time, she had no interest in marrying, preferring to focus on her art, particularly drawing horses. To draw horses as they really were, however, untamed and wild, meant going to the horse market where women were not allowed. She obtained a permit from the police to dress in men’s clothing and paint without being noticed.
Author/illustrator Ruth Sanderson shows us how she worked her sketches into a giant painting, first outlining the images, then filling them in, even standing on a ladder to do the upper parts. When she exhibited the final work, no one believed that a woman had done it—but Rosa had defied the expectations of what a woman could do.
A section with “More About Rosa” at the end informs us that “Rosa chose to never marry. Instead, she lived with a beloved lifelong partner, Nathalie Micas.” After Micas died, she became “very close” with American painter Anna Klumpke, who lived with her until Rosa’s death. Sanderson also writes, “Many believe that Rosa was a lesbian, though she never spoke publicly about her preferences.” She notes that Klumpke’s biography of Bonheur says that Bonheur spoke of marrying Nathalie if Bonheur had been a man, and also spoke of her own relationship with Klumpke as being “the divine marriage of two souls….” She also left her estate to Klumpke, and “This indicated a bond as strong as a licensed marriage, impossible for two women in those times.” The use of the term “preferences” is unfortunate (see the GLAAD Media Reference Guide), but otherwise, this feels like a historically thoughtful assessment.
For younger readers, No Horses in the House! is a picture book biography of Bonheur that simplifies and adapts the story of her life to convey the gist of her significance with verve and fun, though with less detail than this one.
